The goddess who guards the earth's love and hope, though in the neighboring Saint Seiya world she was once depicted as a vase-like figure with no combat power at all, a goddess that needed the saints to protect her.
But the real Athena's combat strength was actually very powerful!
Considered a female war god, she had achievements including defeating multiple other deities including Ares, and was the beloved daughter of the Greek world.
The reason for saying beloved daughter was that though she was not considered the strongest, she never came out on the losing end.
Even the God-King Zeus had moments of eating a loss.
Ares, who called himself the war god, was both bad at fighting and loved to pick fights, always starting trouble but never winning.
Athena on the other hand was like an ever-victorious military deity.
There was even a rumor at one point that she was the woman prophesied to kill her own father Zeus and become the new God-King of Olympus.
Though in the prophecy about the god king's family being overthrown generation by generation by a son, the one who would succeed Zeus's throne after him was supposed to be one of his many sons.
Especially as the child in the prophecy born of the goddess Metis.
But having experienced the influence of fate force multiple times, and the experiences of various goddesses disguising themselves under alternate accounts using names from other pantheons.
Night had gradually begun to sense a little of something.
Since a legend existed, there was a reason for it to exist.
Fate held infinite possibilities!
Perhaps in some version of the Greek mythological world, the goddess Athena could truly defeat Zeus and take the throne of the God-King.
Such as the world where the war god Kratos existed.
Having this kind of potential, if not for being born a daughter, her excellence was enough to make even Zeus wary.
Even without a full set of divine artifacts, Athena's own wisdom, knowledge, authority, and power were still very formidable.
In the Homeric epics, she defeated Ares three times, had a mutually wary relationship with Poseidon, was clearly stronger than Hera,
Here one can relay the perspective of the rainbow goddess Iris...
It was once heard that after Zeus made critical remarks threatening both Athena and Hera, he added a special note that Athena was truly the one who gave him a headache.
However, the Athena in the Homeric epics was not yet in a position to challenge Zeus.
In that version all the Olympian gods combined could not even budge a single hand of Zeus, and Zeus could just as easily chain them all up together and suspend them in midair.
This actually aligns fairly well with the machine god Zeus of the moon world who single-handedly suppressed all the Greek gods.
But Athena in several other versions still never came out on the losing end.
In Sophocles's drama, she could defeat the maddened great hero Heracles in a single strike.
During the Hellenistic period, she could engage Typhon in single combat for several rounds and hold out until the other gods fled to Egypt by transforming into animals.
In the Theogony period, this was the most powerful version of all.
She was fully equivalent to Zeus without his thunderbolts, and clearly stronger than all gods other than Zeus.
This version could probably surpass many powerful gods including Heracles, Nyx, and Hecate.
Never coming out on the losing end was genuinely the rarest and most precious trait among all the gods.
In a Greek world where even the God-King Zeus had moments of eating a loss, only Athena was either winning or on the way to winning.
Every conspiracy and evil was shattered by her.
Of course...
Considering the evolution of human history, perhaps because Athena was the patron goddess of Athens, her status in the hearts of the people of that time was easy to imagine.
No matter what myth was composed, they would never let Athena come out on the losing end.
Especially when talking about Athena, one had to talk about that war god who was defeated by her every time and yet kept jumping out to do things, who considered himself her great rival but actually had no real skill and completely lacked self-awareness.
And what was even funnier was that Sparta, compared to Athens, was even less fond of Ares.
The all-embracing Spartans had temples to Apollo, Artemis, Athena, and Aphrodite all throughout their inner city.
The only one missing was Ares.
If you wanted to worship Ares, please go to the outer city.
As everyone knew, all of Greece disliked Ares, and never included the war god in their activities.
And thinking about being pressured by this worthless war god to accept a blessing,
Night somewhat understood why everyone here disliked Ares so much.
Back to the main topic...
The process of learning martial skill from Athena, though it lasted only about two short days, still benefited him enormously and the gains far exceeded what he originally imagined.
Athena was proficient in many techniques.
Perhaps not every single one of them could reach the level of divine domain martial skill like Hector's or Achilles's divine spear.
But she was valuable precisely because she was proficient in enough of them, and every one had already reached the peak of its discipline, separated from the next dimension by only the thinnest membrane.
With her intelligence, continuing to deeply comprehend the next stage of martial skill would not be difficult.
But according to Athena herself, for gods the most powerful thing was still their own authority.
Battles between gods relied on the contest between authorities.
Rather than improving martial skill, the return on investment was not as good as improving one's own authority.
Night understood this instantly.
It was like how battles in the neighboring Bleach world were battles between (Reiatsu) spiritual pressure, right?
Whatever flashy abilities one had, like a guaranteed two-hit kill, a concept that was powerful enough on its own.
But as long as the other party's Reiryoku far exceeded yours, that pressure could easily cover and suppress this concept.
Superior (Reiryoku) spiritual pressure could crush everything.
Any technique was crushed at will when facing true power.
Very well.
Night successfully felt his desire stirred.
Then the question arose.
Was there any way for him as a human to also obtain something like authority?
He also wanted to just raise his hand and unleash a cannon-blast ultimate with a basic attack.
If there was a chance to be a mage and attack with full firepower, who would not want that?
Not that close-range combat was not hot-blooded and satisfying.
But he also wanted to experience the joy of being a mage.
Oh wait, no.
Apparently he actually already had an authority.
Setting aside the authority of the hunting and moon goddess within Artemis's Arrow that he had not yet realized, in his own self-awareness, Night actually did have one authority.
Bewitching charm!
A powerful passive that could compare with a divine authority.
Did this mean he should walk the path of studying and elevating his charm-related authority?
Other gods used their authority to open area-of-effect attacks and bombard the earth.
He would use his authority to seduce gods into opening area-of-effect attacks to bombard the earth for him?!
Taking the roundabout path to national salvation?
No. Thinking back to how Eris acted as Mach recently, that frenzied and unhinged state.
And Ares's coercion.
And Athena, who was gradually beginning to feel like something was off about her too.
Night: "..."
If this thing is further developed, it honestly feels like it has the potential to turn all the Greek gods collectively into obsessive types."
That would be genuinely too dangerous!
Not wanting to end up like Adonis someday, locked in a black box and hidden away, being drained daily by some goddess or bent over daily by some male god,
Night quickly swept this dangerous thought out of his mind.
Charm was fine in moderation.
Too much would not do.
And time quickly passed until the third day.
When the war god came looking for Night and asked how he had thought things over.
With the goddess Athena standing at his side, the latter this time was completely unhurried and perfectly calm and composed. "I am grateful for your kind favor..."
Ares's authoritative voice asked with expectation. "So then, you agreed to accept my blessing, mortal?"
.
.
.
(End of the Chapter)